(The Regent’s Hack.)

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Charles Williams(The Regent’s Hack.)London, William Holland March 1812
Etching
Original hand-colouring
250x350mm
Trimmed to image
£100
The enormouslay fat figure of the Prince Regent, rides through Manchester Square (a reference to his mistress Lady Hertford whose home, now the Wallace Collection, was in the square) on a spirited horse (branded PR) with the bulbous, drink splotched face of Sheridan. As it goes the horse carefully avoids stepping on large stones which are strewn across its path, each with the head of the Whigs, Holland, Buckingham, Whitbread, Grey, Temple Moira and Erskine. Upon becoming Regent, the Prince promptly abandoned the Whigs, and retained Spencer Perceval as Prime Minister. At the annual St. Patrick’s Day Dinner (March 17th) at which the Prince was usually ‘the reigning and rapturous toast’, his name was received with boos and hisses. Sheridan in a drunken, sycophantic and indiscreet speech, maintained that the Prince would not forget his old supporters at which the hisses were redoubled. BM 11859.